The North-west Passage Discovered.

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exhaustion, to abandon the ship in the following spring, and endeavour to reach some one of the expeditions still searching the Arctic regions for Franklin and his companions in misfortune. This intention being intimated to the crew, they kept the festival of Christmas very cheerfully. "Such a mirthful assemblage," says Maclure, "under any circumstances would be most gratifying to any officer; but in this lonely situation, I could not but feel deeply impressed, as I contemplated the gay and plenteous sight, with the many and great mercies which a kind and beneficent Providence had extended towards us, to whom alone is due the heartfelt praises and thanksgivings of all for the great blessings we have experienced in positions the most desolate which can be conceived."

In April, 1853, the preparations for abandoning the ship were completed, and the whole company crossed the strait on the ice, reaching Melville Island on the 1st of May. There they met Captain Kellett, who having been there the summer before, and found the memorandum deposited by Maclure in the cairn, had returned to look for them.

The discovery of the north-west passage had rewarded Maclure's exertions, though he had failed to find any trace of the Franklin expedition. The reward offered for the discovery of the passage had been long before withdrawn, but the sum of ten thousand pounds was granted by Parliament to the officers and crew. Maclure was knighted, and his commission as captain dated back to the time of his discovery; and a select committee of the House of Commons reported that he and his companions had "performed deeds of heroism, which, though not accompanied by the excitement and the glory of the battle-field, yet rival in bravery and devotion to duty the highest and most successful achievements of war.”

SIR JOHN RICHARDSON'S EXPEDITION-SEARCH FOR FRANKLIN -JOURNEY FROM CAPE KENDALL TO FORT CONFIDENCE-DR. RAE'S EXPEDITION-FRUSTRATION OF ITS OBJECT BY ICECAPTAIN KENNEDY'S SEARCH FOR THE FRANKLIN EXPEDITION-DISCOVERY OF BELLOT STRAIT-SIR EDWARD BELCHER'S EXPEDITION.

MONG the expeditions which were projected on the return of Sir James Ross for the discovery and relief of the unfortunate explorers led by Franklin was one for the examination, with boats, of the channels between the American continent and Wollaston and Victoria Lands, and between the latter and King William Land. Sir John Richardson volunteered to lead this searching party, and was joined in America by his old friend and fellow-explorer, Dr. Rae. Having to travel across Canada and the Hudson Bay territory, after crossing the Atlantic, it was not until the summer of 1851 that the expedition, consisting of twenty seamen (selected for their knowledge of carpenters' and smiths' work), in four boats, descended the Mackenzie to the shores of the Polar Ocean, intending to explore the coast eastward as far as Coronation Gulf, and then cross over to Wollaston Land.

On the 3rd of August, while steering between the western end of Richard Island and the mainland, the explorers met a flotilla of canoes, containing about two hundred Esquimaux, who im

Richardson and the Esquimaux.

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peded the progress of the boat so much that it became necessary to dispense with ceremony in getting rid of them; but after they had been twice driven off, one of the boats was attacked, and would have been plundered of everything it contained if, on an alarm being given by firing a musket, the other boats had not hastened to its rescue. On the crews presenting their muskets, the Esquimaux drew off, though they outnumbered the seamen in the proportion of ten to one. Hutchinson Bay was crossed on the following day, and on the 8th the boats were off Cape Brown. Here a party of Esquimaux was found, who, on being questioned concerning any knowledge they might have of the Franklin expedition, declared that they had never seen white men before; and, though Sir John Richardson recognised among them men whom he had seen before, they protested that he was mistaken.

Rounding Cape Dalhousie, and crossing Liverpool Bay to Nicholson Island, the explorers landed there, but found nothing more worthy of observation than the scanty vegetation and the frozen sub-soil. They then crossed Harrowby Bay, and pitched their tents on Baillie Island, which was approached at nightfall by an Esquimaux flotilla of such strength, that Sir John Richardson ordered a gun to be fired across their prows, as a warning to them to keep off. They obeyed, and on being informed that no traffic would be allowed until morning, they returned to their huts on the mainland. The expedition started next morning at two o'clock, but even that early hour was not too early for the importunate natives, whose canoes were met soon afterwards. Avoiding them as much as was possible, the voyagers pushed on to Cape Bathurst, where they made a deposit of pemmican, and set up a staff, painted red and white.

Crossing Franklin Bay, they found that the bituminous